Friday, 27 May 2016

So I've been to see quite a few bands live so far this year, one that I actually planned to see and didn't buy the tickets as impulse was Busted. Since Charlie Simpson decided to rejoin the band I figured that I really should go and see them to relive some more of my childhood.

I went with my best friend and my brother as we all love the band, though, they hadn't really met properly so I was slightly worried. Nevermind that, they ended up bullying me together all the same to be honest. I really shouldn't have worried about it at all.

Emma Blackery and Wheatus were the support acts, Emma was good, I'm not going to lie. Though, Wheatus was AMAZING! Teenage Dirtbag is epic live and Lemonade has grown on me, it's been stuck in my head since the concert.

The build up for the actual concert really worked me up so I was very ready for the start, I think Sam and Leanne were pretty amused by my singing and dancing. Yet another instance where I made everyone look like fools. I guess if you're having fun you should throw caution to the wind and keep going.

I think it's slightly strange how much all three of us look related in this picture despite the fact that we're not in the slightest bit related to Leanne but hey...

Anyway, I had been slightly dubious about Charlie's reintroduction to the band as his work over the last few years has been slightly too depressive and indie for me. Thankfully I was wrong and Busted still felt like Busted, no big productions or dance numbers were needed, it was all about the music and reminiscing about old favourites. Speaking of favourites...

When they switched to B Stage for a few songs they performed my favourite song of theirs, Who's David? I moved over a little bit so I could see a little better but it was great to see the song performed by the original line-up.

They played the old favourites, some of their more obscure ones and some new ones. They had a nice little mix going on, to be honest. I was happy with their choices and it was an amazing night out, I love to hang out with my brother on nights like that one and having my best friend there just made it what it was. It makes my happy just thinking about it.

I mean, look how close they were! At one point James even pointed at me, I swear. It sounds pretty gross but we could see their sweat stains from where we were, just sayin'! So yeah, the PIGS CAN FLY Tour was the best thing since sliced bread and I plan on going to their next one providing it happens.

Now is about the time I start apologising profusely for my absent blogging style as of late... Yeah, I've had a few night shifts and few long days. I'll try to be better at updating but really I can't promise anything because all I do is work and sleep. Well, thanks for reading!

Tuesday, 10 May 2016

Things are starting to brighten up a bit here, the sun has been shining and flowers have been blooming... Basically, Spring has finally booked up it's ideas and decided to grace us with a bit of warmth!

I don't drive, it's just something I don't feel ready to do and to be honest... I need the exercise anyway so walking isn't something I particularly dislike, I actually enjoy walking. The issue with this, however, is that it's difficult to decide which jacket to go for when going to work. My usual leather staple keeps heat in the jacket and if I keep it on I end up a sweaty mess, of course I could take it off but then I'm left carrying a jacket all the way home. My favourite denim jacket works out okay for the warm weather, the downside of this one is that sometimes the weather turns and then I'm left freezing my butt off.

I don't know about you guys but I tend to spend a lot more when things get a little hotter, I end up treating myself to a frappé or an icey cold smoothie. I love anything with caffeine and a little syrup so I try quite a few different kinds. It's almost like when I was in Hong Kong and I just "treated myself" to a cocktail on the way back to the boat most evenings.

I've been told that I should drink a hot beverage to make my body react in a certain way, now, whilst I understand how that works... The last thing I think about when I'm overheating is a hot chocolate or a cappuccino.

Last year when I was abroad I got so annoyed with having my hair matted against my neck all the time that I got it all chopped off. I had a pixie cut for months and I regretted getting rid of it all when I got home. Since seeing all of the Coachella pics and getting festival style inspo I've been desperately wishing for longer hair.

This leads me to the retrial of the hair extensions as all of the bleach that previously covered my hair has now been cut out and I currently have a short bob. The colour matches up quite well but since these extensions are synthetic I struggle to get the blend right. I think it worked out quite well when I pushed it all over to the side. Hopefully I'll have mermaid locks for next summer but we'll just see how long it takes for my hair to pass the stubborn "I don't want to grow anymore" stage.

As you can see in the image to the right, I've lost that nice healthy glow that I gained during last years travels. I was quite happy with my slight tan as my arms, face and legs tend to look an unhealthy pasty colour over winter. My nana brought my pastyness to my attention at the weekend when I visited her for lunch, cheers nana!

I'm going to try to build something of a colour up again but I doubt I'll go abroad until the very end of the year so I'll have to rely on a decent British Summer. If I've jinxed this for us, I'm very sorry! I know we don't get great weather in the scheme of things.

Well, that was my nod to my kind... The pale and the whiny. If you're naturally tanned or recently sunkissed, I'll be eternally jealous of you! Thanks for reading today's post!

Monday, 9 May 2016

So what do 20 year old's do when they've borrowed their dad's caravan for the weekend? Drink copious amounts of alcohol? Have a mini party? Nah, not this one. I baked Disney themed cupcakes with my best friend. I will say now that if it was left to me the cakes would have been flat and they would have tasted like acetone but maybe one day I won't be crap at baking.

I prefer sponge to chocolate as chocolate can be a little sickly if you mess up the consistency. We used the Bero recipe for Victoria Sandwich and divided the mixture into three batches. We also used pre-made icing and added the colouring for effect.

The ingredients used for one batch of six:

100g margarine

100g caster sugar

2 eggs

100g self raising flour

Start off by pre-heating the oven at 180 degrees and then put the sugar and the margarine together in a mixing bowl and mix until "light and fluffy" before also beating in the eggs ONE AT A TIME. I was told off for adding them both at the same time but, hey, I'm not the best at baking.

As you do this just add a little flour with each egg and then fold in the remaining flour. Not too difficult as far as mix goes and all you need to do from there is put the mixture into the cases and then plop them into the tin. These go in the oven for about 25 minutes but you should keep an eye on them anyway.

The cakes came out looking like store bought cakes and being fair, we did follow the instructions down to the letter. We ate two from this batch "just to check that I hadn't been a bad influence" and we ended up flattening out the rest so that the icing would flat our right and be easy to decorate.

It takes a few minutes to kneed in the colour and get the icing a bit more pliable and ready to be cut out for the cupcakes. We chose the colours based on the Disney princesses that we chose beforehand, my favourite being Ariel. The sole reason I want long flowing mermaid hair.

They looked fairly even and consistent in shape, we cut out a cardboard stencil for the icing using packaging for something. There's some of that blogging glamour right there!

We had flour all over the benches to stop things from sticking and ruining how neat and well put together things seemed to be. Not exactly how my previous baking endeavours have really gone...

Anyway, from there I crafted a mermaid tail and other little themed pieces for the tops of the cupcakes. One cupcake of each set had lyrics on and the other had a glittery themed image based on the movies.

I enjoyed making these cupcakes as we listened to Disney songs, I think it kind of helps to keep some things from your childhood as an adult because sometimes life gets a little heavy. That's just how things are and I think that whilst I'm responsible, I do do enjoy being a little immature.

So come on, my favourite Disney film is The Little Mermaid. What's yours? We all have one movie that we particularly loved as kids, let me know in the comments. Well, thanks for reading today's post. It's good to be back and blogging again.

Tuesday, 3 May 2016

Hello everyone, as unexpected as this may be... I'm back with another post. I'm just going to apologise yet again for how sparse my blog activity has been recently. Anyway, this is going to be a #NOTD post because I've had the pictures for a few weeks now.

These aren't my best work, I'm not going to lie. The polish was patchy and the general style was a little simple but I used a product to dry the polish quicker and it messed up the consistency of the base. Without the spray these would have looked much better, I just wish I had tried out the spray on just one nail and then checked the effect before continuing.

I was inspired by the boho vibes wafting their way over from Coachella again to be honest, when I did these it was maybe three days before the actual festival started. I've never attended Coachella but I do enjoy stalking Instagram to get a good scope of the style. When I mentioned a festival theme, my friend was a little dubious. I don't know what she was expecting but I don't think the design itself was all that bad.

After a base coat I used a Nails Inc Hyper Gel in

a nude tone for the base and then a "quick dry" product as fore mentioned in the post. I still quite like the nude nail trend that has spanned over the past few years, I just kind of prefer bolder statement colours at the moment for my own nails.

I think I actually prefer the nude shades from Rimmel as they're slightly more pigmented. I think the ones I'm talking about were from last year's collection from Kate Moss. Not that any of this will make sense if you don't know what I'm rambling on about!

I then added the little half faux pearls to the nails of the ring fingers as features. They were very easy to add and I didn't even use adhesive to stick them on, I painted the backs of the pieces using the clear coat I used as a base.

For the flowers on the thumbnails were painted on using the brush side of a dotting tool. I used Primark nail polishes to create the leaves and the petals. I added the white to soften the look as I wanted it to be less big and bold.

The design is kind of reminiscent of granny bedsheets if you know what I mean... Dated and floral. Not that I'm stereotyping, I just can't think of another way to put it as a theme. The thing with this design is that you don't have to be particularly neat, you can neaten it to taste... And I would have if I hadn't been super cold and tired but hey, I enjoy having something like nail painting to keep me occupied!

Well, thanks for reading! I'll be back with more posts as soon as possible, I have loads of these backed up. Until then, bye!

Monday, 2 May 2016

For those of you who have been following my blog, it won't be new information that I visited Hong Kong last year. For those of you who are new to my blog, I mentioned a few times last year that I enjoyed the great amount of skincare available there.

They have more options when it comes to skincare and they really seem to know what they're talking about. One shop in particular that I took a liking to was Sasa, it was hard not to seeing as though there was one at nearly every turn. About a month ago I watched a video by the Fashion Mumblr and found myself fascinated by one of the masks she talked about. After watching it I went straight online in search of Yeon masks and added two to my checkout.

The contents of my online basket:

The Yeon Juju Hallabong Energy mask

The Yeon Pore Gassoul Mask

SNP Charcoal Mineral Black Ampoule Mask

Secret A Pore 3-Step total facial mask

Anti Acne Cleaning Mask Pack

Neogence PORE CARE Serum Extremely Off-Heads PH5.5

I also got two free Neogence Hyaluronic Acid Travel Sets for spending a certain amount on the products. It took a few weeks for everything to arrive but that was to be expected as they were shipped from Asia. I was quite impressed by the fact that nothing was damaged as they were shipped from quite a distance and I've had bad experiences with companies in THIS country.

The Pore Ghassoul Mask smelled fresh and sort of like citrus, the consistency makes the mask more like a mud based product. I like how the smell matches up to the product packaging, you don't really get products like this here in the UK. The packaging is both fun and practical as it serves as a protective pot for the product.

The little spatula type thing is quite handy and providing you wash it after every use it is more hygienic and it's less likely that it will spread any bacteria that may have been on your skin. Spots have oil that can create more spots if you rub or transfer it, as gross as that sounds!

Here's another bizarre product usage selfie for those of you wondering what the consistency of it actually looks like on. I put it on quite thinly because I like to see that the product has dried before I wash it off.

There is a slight stinging sensation that sort of comes with the mask but only where the spots are, if you know what I mean. It's not painful, you can just feel the mask working. My skin felt fresh and clean once it was washed off and that's all I really wanted, to feel refreshed after a long week at work.

Well, I hope you guys have enjoyed my little HAUL post and peak at one of the products that I tried out. I figured it would be more interesting than a post that would just say "well I bought this and "I bought that" because I know I prefer that sort of thing. Anyway, thanks for reading!

I'm a little off the wall blogger from the North East of England, I drink my weight in tea on a daily basis and I tend to quote books, movies and music. I blog about my life, beauty and fashion so you'll be sure to find a mixed range of content here. Thanks for visiting!

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'Aymie Louise' is a lifestyle, beauty and fashion blog that includes honest reviews and accepts sponsored posts. If the product reviewed has been sent out, paid to be reviewed or anything else of that nature it will be announced within the post.